Drams of drama in the Scottish capital

Three weeks to go and I’m homeless

Over the past year I’ve had people hassling me about why I wasn’t blogging more. Apologies readers, I couldn’t quite bring myself to blog about my working life as it probably would have busted various confidentiality clauses. Besides, who wants to hear about mid-afternoon coffee runs and minuting conference calls? I concede that My Office Crushes: A Saga might have been amusing, but probably best left in the torrid depths of my imagination.

Now, happily #funemployed, on the brink of moving to a new city and embarking on an MSc (that’s right, Chinese parents be proud, your Arts-centric daughter is going to get a Master of Science in an Arts subject! Talk about having it all), I can go back to blogging about what I love blogging about: culture, travel, and languages. Though I have no intention of learning Scots or Scottish Gaelic – that accent, though!

In my now-past life as a corporate consultant, I worked with the Royal Bank of Scotland and it was on business trips to Edinburgh that I found myself becoming charmed by the Scottish accent, sitting in the offices of RBS and being startled by Scotsmen in business suits repeatedly intoning “sex, sex, sex” (that’s “six”, FYI). How could anyone not like an accent that makes someone say “sex” in place of “six”? It’s possibly one of my favourites, whose lilting cadences manage to sound gentle and charming on a woman and so very MANLY on a man.

And Edinburgh! It is one of those places that causes small showers of shimmering stars to fall from the mouths of those who speak its name. One of those places (like, oh I dunno, Montreal) about which nobody has a bad thing to say, except perhaps (again like Montreal) the weather.

Packing is slowly under way, I’ve selected course options, and all that’s left for me to sort is the minor matter of finding somewhere to live. I’ve experienced no shortage of housing drama in the past as you’ll remember here, here,here and here, and with three weeks to go and still being homeless, it looks to be another one. The prices of Edi rent make my London-hardened eyes smart, but I’m sure it’ll all work out in the end. You’ll hear about it soon enough.